Reading (For Dummies)

Death Penalty

Random thought of the minute. Last night I was at Clark's (a bar in downtown Syracuse) with Leah and Amos, and we got on the topic of the death penalty. Leah supports the death penalty and I don't. I thought about it a little while ago, and decided that I would support it if and only if there was a requirement. The governor of the state doing the death penalty has to sit down and talk with the person for a minimum amount of time (say somewhere between 20 minutes and and an hour). The prisoner should be given access to all court documents from his case and access to a lawyer at least one month prior to the meeting, and there should be a lawyer present (the same that the prisoner consulted with, assuming he consulted a lawyer) at the meeting with all of the evidence from the trial. After the meeting, if the governor decides that the death penalty is the right thing to do, it can proceed.

Some day, if I become the benevolent dictator of the world...

Health within walking distance

While in Germany I always noticed that the populous was, in general, healthier. My suspicion was always that Germany (and most of Europe) has better planning. The zoning is such that any house is only a few (< 7) blocks away from a grocery store, a bar, a restaurant, and a pharmacy. Because of this, people don't have to drive to go out, and they end up walking. And since they are walking, they decide they may as well actually go for a walk, since it's good for them. Then the population slims down. Finally someone has done a comprehensive study.

Homeland Security

Today TRAC has released a report on the Homeland Security Department. I wonder if Bush will be cutting out their raises next?

Gay Marriage Ban

I haven't heard anything about this before, so maybe it's not even true, but there is apparently some kind of legal thing going on concerning gay marriage. As a pretty liberal guy who thinks that any future ban on gay marriage is wrong, I command you to go and sign this thing (or at least research and see if it's true, then go and sign it).

Science vs. faith

I couldn't have put it better myself. Even with my recent religious exploratory ramblings, I'll have to go and label myself as a Bright. Even the buddhists are a cult pushing a faith, for some reason I had it in my mind that meditation was exploring a different question.

I'm still an Agnostic Minister, and may even get to do a wedding in mid-october (of the legally binding variety) for Leah, the cook at owner of Syr-A-Juice (which I frequent), under the guise of the church. For now, I am a hardcore mathematician, pondering the universe through sets and numbers.

+1 315 395 0160

Just like David, I've gone cellular. I had a cell phone in Germany previously. This one is fancier...color screen, digital camera attachment, web browsing, infrared. No bluetooth as I couldn't justify spending hundreds of dollars on a phone. The infrared lets me sync contact data with my Zaurus at least.

I don't like cell phones much, mostly because of all the dumb conversations I hear on them. People in this town walk around saying what they're doing, "Yeah, I'm walking to the quad. Cool. Yeah I just got out of class. Yeah it's fun. No, I didn't know that. Get OUT! Ohmygawd!."

It really doesn't appeal to me. The handy (or cell phone) culture in my mind is so self-important that it needs to inform someone of every action, and those actions are so important that they must be reportable to everyone at a moment's notice. I am much more of a, "Let's meet at 5:30 at the coffee pavillion. Okay cool, bye," kind of guy. I usually like to be unplugged and away from it all.

I suppose that, on the funny side, I haven't actually brought my phone any place. It sits in my bedroom plugged into the wall. If I'm not home, people can wait. Maybe that will change, but I certainly hope not.

My week(s) in photos

I've been decompressing for a few weeks after the breakup. Trying to relax, cool out, whatever. It was a productive little while. I hit up this little town in the Adirondacks called Inlet. It's a tiny two-block town that seems to have settled into the role of vacation destination for city-folk. I guess, unfortunately, that includes me.

My brother gave me the 411 on the town, who to talk to, where to go. Erik can be an incredibly resourceful older brother.

My first night there, camping out

I camped out in the Moose River Plains area, saw a coyote padding around while I rode much of the Black Fly Challenge race course (80 mile course on a dirt road). Hit up the Olde Barn for some brews afterwards, made idle chitchat with the bikers (of the motorized variety) and the bartender, doing my best to fit in. Which wasn't all that great; Germany seems to have ruined what little social skill I managed to develop over the years. I suppose 8 months of isolation and the inability to have normal and dumb conversations does that. It's funny, I was having a conversation with my friend and co-worker David Walter about idle chit-chat (sort of a meta-idle-chit-chat conversation). He quoted a recent studying showing that we only actively listen to about 20% of the information we hear, so idle chit-chat is necessary to perform a sort of linguistic buffer for our brains.

Anyway, to get back to my narrative, my night of camping was splendid. I went to sleep at around 9pm and awoke at 5:30am, packed my tent up, and headed to town. I even had to wait for the only bakery in town to open, at 7:00am.

I picked up a guide book and decided to try another fancy trail. But first, a real breakfast was in order.

I met an interesting woman...

I should mention that I met this woman named Dina on my first day in Inlet. I ran into here again, by chance, at Olde Forge. I thought I was in love with this cute woman who hiked and was witty as all get out. Naturally she was married, and to top it off her husband did a very weird prayer circle thing at breakfast. The whole situation creeped me out. Head for the hills!

Is this far enough away?

I did the Woodhull Lake Loop that morning/afternoon, taking my time with it. The guidebook can be so informative. This sign, "probably suggests something about the seasonal residents of a hunting shanty you'll see ahead."

After Inlet, it was a week of discovering that the University's benefits for we NSF winners appears to suck. That is, we can't enroll in the University's nice health insurance plan, our option is to get the student plan ($1000+/year which only pays for 80% of any doctor visits, and does not include dental or vision) or go elsewhere. I may opt for coverage with a local HMO, but I don't even know where to start looking.

Anyway, after the week of dealing with the paperwork that comes with the start of semester, I hit up a Dylan concert. At the fairgrounds of all places.

The bard is looking old...

I really dig Dylan's music, but I've come to realize that he isn't all that spectacular live. He's a great performer, but after seeing enough of my folkies I really dig people that are good entertainers. Bob barely said a word outside of his music; I was expecting a little witty banter as I heard in Philadelphia all those years ago.

Today Keisuke and I went riding in Highland Forest.

It was a little bit muddy

We managed to do the long main loop with the South Side Extension (or whatever it's called). It was pretty sloppy on the trails, taking me a few hours to clean it up.

This was Keisuke's first time mountain biking, and he's a natural. I guess all that road biking and snowboarding leads to a fairly coordinated individual.

Well, I seem to be finding some kind of new (single) groove again. Maybe now I'll shake off that 10 pounds or so that I've picked up since eastern Europe.

Beating Keystroke Loggers

I came up with a fun way to beat keystroke sniffers while having to register for the Zodiac Tournament. I didn't trust the public lab computer that I was typing on after all the stories of people installing keystroke sniffers, but I think my method was rather ingenius.

Since I know a lot of digits of Pi, I started typing them, and clicked my mouse between emacs and my browser window when I hit digits in the sequence that happened to line up with my credit card number. I suppose repeatedly typing 01234567890123... would work as well. It may be susceptible to timing attacks, assuming that keystroke recorders become sophisticated enough to record keystroke timings. Still it is a lot safer to do this (or something like it) than to let some moron who put a key sniffer on the public computer you happen to be using have your credit card number.

It's all in the ordering

I find the title of this story interesting, "Saboteurs Hit Iraqi Oil, Water Supply". If we're really not that interested in oil, why not reverse the order? I like to view headlines like these as the ultimate form of data compression. It says so much, using so little space...

Neighbors

My neighbors and I are in a row. After one too many of their late-night parties I lost patience. The first four or five parties they had I asked nice if they'd turn their music down so I could sleep, then they went ahead and started having sex on the hood of my car (scratching it up).

The other night's 2am game of beer pong complete with screaming obscenities every few minutes did me in. I went over, told them in no uncertain terms to shut the hell up, went back inside. They got louder, so I called the cops. Yesterday they threatened physical bodily damage to me for ruining their fun. In an effort at paranoia, I've set up a motion detector/webcam in my window. The software is called motion and best of all there is a debian package (you will probably want the debian package ucbmpeg as well, so you can have it clean up the jpegs and leave mpeg movies for you).

Let them fuck with my car now!

It should at least provide a deterrent/evidence if they key my car, break windows, or decide to accost me in front of my apartment.

Oddly, I'm categorizing this entry under privacy. I suppose that this might fall under invasion of privacy, but I set up a cron job to delete all the photos and mpegs after they are one week old. That way, if I don't see anything wrong with windows or cars, I won't see anything at all.

We're still here, we're still alive

The great northeast power failure hasn't shut down good old vendaworld. Yet. Luckily the university campus has some variety of backup power. I recall we were on this way back in the day...

I'll try and clip off a few pictures of the city. Should be interesting.

More Microsoft Bashing

There is something I still don't get about Microsoft's software distribution. When they include Windows <insert year or vague reference to Mac OS version> with a computer, they either include service packs on a second CD or not at all. This is okay, but the average computer user is an idiot and when they see that Windows is finished installing or is already installed, they don't bother with this "Service Pack" CD.

I might suggest to Microsoft the following:
1) Tell the truth. Don't call it a "Service Pack," call it a, "Bug Fix" or "Update" CD. Perhaps label the CD important and provide a date. Back when I was an NT4 support guru, most users I knew never bothered installing the Service Packs because they didn't know what they were.
2) Provide an update schedule. Make a timeline that says a new Update CD will be published every month. Updates may come more often, but certainly not less often, than this schedule. I think there are plenty enough bugs for MS to do this, and it provides administrators with a better schedule (ie, "It's that time of the month, off to patch the servers"). [as an aside we could have jokes about the administrator's significant other 'in sync' with this schedule so he could be off at work and out of the house].
3) Why not demand that the user put this CD in? A fresh install of their OS should, after it is done obtaining registration information, demand the Update CD. Whenever their release is brand-spanking new, provide a blank CD as the update CD. If the update CD inserted is older than one month, it should say it is out of date, take it anyway, and be as annoying as it can about security updates until the user finishes patching the system.
4) The CDs should be cumulative, smart enough to install all the software, reboot, and continue patching until the system is up to date.
5) The CD should have a digital signature to verify that its contents are from Microsoft.
6) Microsoft should work with hardware vendors more. Vendors should ask to put you on MS' CD update list for free. Subscribers will be mailed an update CD every month. Yes it will be expensive, Billy, but your bugs are expensive and it is time for you to start eating some of the cost.

Since Microsoft's primary method of distributing the operating system is CD, I think this is the best idea.

Legal action over the latest bug

Random thought of the night. While the owners and operators of Windows computers agreed to an EULA saying Microsoft is not responsible for financial loss caused by flaws in their product, I never did. Assuming I proved that the latest Microsoft bug has caused me financial loss, could I sue Microsoft over it? Or legally would I have to go after the actual operator of the computer which caused the problem (even though they did nothing wrong)?

Part of me longs for the day when commercial software producers will be held accountable for lack of safety in their products. Current EULAs could be compared to Ford selling you a car and the contract reading, "If the fuel tank randomly explodes while the car is sitting in your driveway, killing everyone in a 12-mile radius, we aren't responsible." We certainly don't put up with that kind of crap in the physical world.

Nantucket Windmill Woes

Looks like some people are pissed off about the Nantucket Sound wind mill proposal. I suggest that they build a coal power facility in its place.

Drivers Licenses, Circular Dependencies

Tomorrow I'm heading down to the New York DMV to get my license and register to vote up here. It is rather interesting the sorts of identification that the state requires in the name of fighting terrorism. They have gotten more strict -- sort of.

It is interesting to me that I could get my New York license/permit with using:
- A supermarket card (like perhaps one of these?)
- A union card
- A utility bill
- A high school ID card
- A pay stub

Combined, this is adequate proof of identity, minus a birth certificate. Of course, to get a birth certificate you don't need much...a person's name, date of birth, their parents' names, and city of birth in most states. Oh and about $5. I think with an illegally-obtained birth certificate, it would be fairly easy to get the or fake the rest of the identification stuff. Maybe that's just me.

What's more interesting is that if you eliminate that stuff, you start running into circular dependencies. In order to get a driver's license the first time without the "weird" proofs of identity, you'll need a passport. Getting a passport is a hell of a lot easier with a driver's license. I wonder if, some day, we'll run into a circular dependency with identity; the inability to obtain document A without document B, while document B requires document A.

Perhaps the the department of homeland security needs to upgrade to Debian.

We broke up :(

After two years of dating, Annie and I have broken up. It is quite a sad event, but our interests just seem to be drifting too far apart lately. Certainly my recent curmudgeonly/anti-social behavior has not been helping. I guess it is better to end things now than to wait until things get bitter, but it still hurts.

Sleep for the Weary

It's been weird moving back to the US, I seem to have more trouble staying in touch with US people now than I did when I lived in Deutschland. I suppose it's some sort of moving melanchoy, but it seems to be getting better, thankfully. I played frisbee with the normal gang last night and about halfway through the game I just felt better, and my game improved a lot. I promised myself afterwards that I would buy myself a pair of kleets so I can run and cut like the big kids.

After the game I had promised DFC I would meet him at the Bull & Bear at around 11, and decided to catch a few hours shut-eye starting around 8pm. I woke up at noon today. Guess I needed it after not sleeping much since before Annie's Big Move (tm).

Welcome Henry

Welcome new blogger Henry, who will also be my roommate for the next year (or so).

Holy Fucking Shit

You are reading about the Happiest Man in Syracuse. The NSF Cyberservice checks got here over a month ahead of schedule. Reid is now several thousand dollars richer. This actually means that Reid is broke, since his credit card bill is currently just over what the check pays for. But still, these are exciting times.

To cap off this most welcome news, I'm going for a bike ride. Photos at 11.

Trailer Hitch Woes

I've been trying to get a hitch for my Subaru so I can haul the cycle up from Queens. Uhaul sucks big time, if nobody has figured it out. I called and ordered a hitch which had a promised price of $180 total for installation. They charged a deposit to my credit card of $50, and now they've changed their tune. The new price? $290. A slight increase.

Something is not right. Avoid uhaul at all costs (even all costs might turn out to be cheaper).

Creepy Dreams

Woke up with a bizarre nightmare in my head. I was scheduled to fly out of Germany, so I arrived at the airport at 8am, riding my bicycle. It was unfortunate, because I could not pack my bicycle in a box and it seemed like I couldn't bring it with me. My mother, brother Erik, and Annie met me at the airport to see me off for some reason. Dreams are weird like that. We waited around for 13 hours before I decided to check my ticket, it turns out I waited too long and my flight had just left at 9pm. I was rescheduled for the next flight, which was in 40 minutes.

I checked my bags and got on the plane, we started to take off, but didn't reach speed on the short runway, and hit the ground. I remember the plane ran over a taxi and up a hill. I had the presence of mind to get out my camera in the dream and take pictures as we slid along the ground. It was most bizarre.

Note to self, never eat a brownie before bedtime.